Denis Diderot – A Prelude to the Future

I have purposely placed his portrait right up front, with full intent, in order to make it necessarily unavoidable. The painting is by Louis Michel VanLoo and dates roughly to the mid-1770’s and captures Denis Diderot, the aging ‘radical’ of the French Enlightenment, at what appears to be near my own age of 60. An earlier portrait, again by VanLoo, presented Diderot at his writing desk displaying a pensive smile, as if lost in thought, but Diderot didn’t care for it, saying that it showed him in a single mood. He felt the earlier portrait didn’t capture the tumultuous nature of his mind, but with VanLoo’s second attempt, this time with Diderot’s fame in Paris far more established, VanLoo subtly captured the intellectual exuberance that friends knew so well. What we see here is the weathered residue of Diderot’s intellectual battles, which in 18^th century France meant the fight against the oppressive grip of the Church (Catholic) and State (hereditary Monarchy).  

Context is everything, of course, and Diderot embodied an impressive collection of them throughout his lifetime, but before wading into that torrent, take a moment to study his gaze….and here I really must insist. Notice VanLoo’s intentions at work, presenting Diderot in a rumbled shirt, casually unbuttoned as if he is among friends, perhaps engaged in a debate with his fellow “Philosophes” at Baron d’Holbach’s Salon, with customary wig discarded and completely unconcerned at his receding hairline, looking a little worse for wear. Even his posture and gaze are suggestive as he is presented leaning slightly backward as if in reproach to what he is hearing. It is in that context that his eyes tell us all we need to know. Here we can see the focus, his ideas swarming, fermenting, desperately awaiting for an opportunity to respond. THIS is the painting that captures the Diderot known to his closest friends.

Of course, his name was new to me. I admit the 18^th century never grabbed my curiosity. Whenever I came across paintings from the era, the sight of men wearing tights and wigs just didn’t inspire much interest on my part. The result being that I never bothered to educated myself on any of them, or their contributions. My failure was in not understanding that we are all products of our times, oriented to its mores, socially, morally, and of course, fashionably. The men of the 18^th century wore wigs and tights because that was what passed for style at the time, and that is all. Philosophers and writers such as Voltaire, D’Holbach, La Mettrie, Helvetius, Meslier, Rosseau, Montesquieu and of course Diderot, have all lit up my mind with their intellectual fearlessness, yet each wore tights. But the more I read, the more I find myself among a group of comrades, men who took their literary and philosophical axes to the forest of religious dogma and superstition, men who unleashed a zeitgeist of liberal (liberation) ideals across Europe, such as ‘representative government’, and ‘freedom of speech and press’, which lent intellectual fuel to the American colonies. In fact, Thomas Jefferson, America’s greatest intellectual, was profoundly influenced by their writings, particularly Montesquieu and Rosseau. It was these Frenchmen, in their powdered wigs and stockings, that effectively brought a blow torch to the strongest institution the world has ever known (the Catholic Church) and left it gasping for air.

In the title to this essay, I refer to Diderot as a “prelude” because I believe he, more than any of his contemporaries, would have adapted to our modern sensibilities with more ease….and likely more exuberance than any other of his time. Voltaire is rightfully considered the intellectual force behind the French Enlightenment, but unlike him, Diderot didn’t feel the same constraints of social convention. Voltaire was wealthy, a self-made millionaire, and lived like an aristocrat, rubbing elbows with Kings and Queens, whereas Diderot was a bohemian, caring little about money and scraped by as best he could. The result being that Voltaire had a lot to lose, and therefore played his cards (mostly) by the rules of “descent” society, but Diderot was a born iconoclast and more than earned his reputation as a rebellious freethinker and malcontent.

But where to begin?

Normally the beginning would be a good place to start, but since little from his childhood could have predicted the man to come, it would be of limited value. He was born in 1713 and quickly displayed a sharp mind, so much so that his father paid to have him educated by the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus), which at the time represented the best possible education in all of Europe. Voltaire had a Jesuit education as well. As a teenager, this future atheist even eyed a career in the clergy, but after completing his studies, he inexplicably failed to take the necessary exam for ordination. To explain this curious lapse in judgement, I’ll quote an amusing line from the historian, Will Durant, who explained “as often happened, the Jesuits lost a novice by sharpening a mind.”

After living in near destitution during his twenties and showing no ambition to speak of, he entered his thirties with a renewed focus, no doubt due to the responsibilities of marriage and children, and by the time he reached his late thirties, he had made himself a well-known polymath in Paris and was considered one of the most widely educated men in all of France. As chief editor of the famous Encyclopedie, he wrote some 7000 articles among its seventeen volumes, ranging from biology, economics, physiology, medicine, chemistry, painting, to even Boa Constrictors. He studied anatomy, physics, and kept abreast of the mathematics of his day. He wrote treaties on harmonics and music theory and wrote forward thinking articles on science, psychology, theology, and philosophy….and was also a novelist and playwright. The man’s mind was on fire.

But his education wasn’t what made him so unique, for there was a sharp contrast between knowing him through his writings and knowing him personally. To that point, his most memorable trait among those who knew him best was his brilliance in conversation, particularly his unrestrained freedom to go where few men dared. Friends marveled at his genius and his flights of thought on any subject at hand. Even Voltaire considered him one of the greatest conversationalist of the century. He was a man who could shed tears over a poem yet indulge in coarse obscenities……without contradiction. Many of his fellow ‘Philosophes’ (the intellectuals of the French Enlightenment) reckoned him more profound than Voltaire, certainly more original. The historian, Jean-Francois Marmontel stated that those “who know Diderot only through his writings….don’t know him at all….I have experienced few greater intellectual pleasures than to hear him speak.” Henri Meister, who often heard Diderot ‘hold court’ at Baron d’Holbach’s salon described him this way.

“When I recall Diderot, the immense variety of his ideas, the amazing multiplicity of his knowledge, the rapid flight, the warmth, the impetuous tumult of his imagination, all the charm and all the disorder of his conversation, I venture to liken his character to a force of nature.”

Of course, this is just a brief sketch, just some backfill to provide color and texture to the man. But instead of laying out his various contributions and controversies, which in both cases were extensive, I want to focus this note on his love of art, which of course is my own favorite subject. As a playwright, he was well ahead of his contemporaries, and his thoughts on acting were revolutionary at the time. For example, he was the first to write plays concerning the bourgeoisie (middle class) and their lives and virtues, and wrote in common French prose instead of the formal poetic form that Voltaire excelled in. But with respect to his literary fame, I want to step away from what made him famous and concentrate instead on what made him so unique.

The Art Critic

His career as an art critic began innocently enough…. he simply lent a helping hand to his best friend. That friend, the French Diplomat/Journalist, Friedrich Grimm,  who asked him to write reviews of the paintings showing that year at the Louvre while he was away. This would have been 1759, when Diderot was already burdened with producing the final volumes of the Encyclopedie, but he readily agreed to help his friend. Grimm produced and sold his bi-monthly “Correspondence”, for a very distinguished list of two dozen or so patrons that included among its clientele the King and Queen of Sweden, the King of Hungary and as well as Catherine the Great of Russia, and a number of Princes’, Dukes, and other nobles across Europe. The newsletter itself covered the latest news and political commentary going around, as well as any new scientific discovers, and reviews of the most recent literature and art.

What made it so unique was not only its exclusive patronage but that each newsletter was painstakingly written and copied by hand in order to evade the censors. Had he sent it to printers, French authorities would have arrested him and burned every copy. Such were the rules of combat at the time. With that in mind, it’s easy to recognize Diderot’s excitement to lend a helping hand, for he was able to express himself freely and had an audience of the most liberal minds in Europe. And he didn’t waste the opportunity, as was noted a century later when Goethe and Schiller both praised his insights on aesthetics.

It was there in the ‘Correspondence’, that he allowed himself to wander freely over almost every aspect of life. He had no technical background to be an art critic, but he spoke with the artist themselves, studied their method of composition, brushwork, and use of color. A few of his critiques came in the form of imaginary conversations with the painters as he viewed their work, or as personal musings directed to his friend Grimm, or even more notably, crafting conversations with the characters within the paintings themselves, at times turning art into literature. Nothing so unique or intimate had ever appeared in art criticism before.

He also expressed his preferences and prejudices with unabashed candor. For example, after railing against one of Francois Boucher’s nudes, he quipped, “All the same, let me have her just as she is, and I do not think I shall waster time complaining that her hair is too dark.” In another he was angered by a depiction of Joseph rejecting the advances from Potiphar’s wife (from Genesis 39), saying, “I can’t imagine what he could have wanted. I would not have asked for any better and have often settled for less.”

His love of philosophy couldn’t help but inform his reviews either, as he rejected the classic emphasis on rationality, order, and harmony, and valued passionate expression over form and reason, saying “compositions terrible or sensuous, which…. carry love or terror to the depths of your heart, dissolve your senses, and purge your soul; there is something in that which no rules can achieve.” In this he anticipated Nietzsche’s Apollonian/Dionysian conception by a century.

As I’ll show shortly, he also espoused an approach to aesthetics that encouraged viewers to place themselves into the scenes depicted on canvas, to imagine themselves in the drama, to live through a character’s emotion or perhaps catch the fragrance of the landscape, all in order to capture the artists true intent. This unique imperative was another innovation that predated a 20^th Century concept called “the beholders share”, conceived of by Alois Riegl, which espouses precisely the same imperative. In art, as in so many other topics, Diderot was well out in front of the herd.

So, let’s take a quick glance into how this all played out. As a starting point, let’s take this painting by Jean-Baptiste Grueze in 1765, title “Girl with a Dead Canary”. In Diderot’s review, he began by first commenting on the symbolisms he detected, noting that the cage represented imprisonment, and it’s open door implying a freedom or perhaps something lost……observations that few would have picked up on. But then Diderot’s mind took flight. From those a few suggestive clues, he began to spin a tale. The young girl is obviously distraught at the death of her canary and has been crying, as noticed by her flush checks and red nose, and is caught in a pensive, even despairing moment of reflection. Instead of describing these elements in some vague linear digression, Diderot’s mind leaps to their implications instead. What followed illustrates the sheer uniqueness of his mind, for he begins a conversation with the young girl herself and in the process decodes the underlining allegory that Greuze aimed for with his portrait.

“Come, little one, open up your heart to me, tell me truly, is it really the death of this bird that’s caused you to withdraw so sadly, so completely into yourself?…..You lower your eye, you don’t answer. Your tears are about to flow. I’m not your fault…….Well, well, I’ve figured it out, he loved you, and for such a long time, he swore to it! He suffered so much! How difficult it is to see an object of our love suffer!

Once Diderot intuited the ‘true’ reason for her sadness, he speaks to her again as he outlines what he imagines had transpired that morning.

“Unfortunately, your mother was absent; he came, you were alone, he was so handsome, his expressions so truthful! He said things that went right to your soul! And while saying them he was at your knees; that too can easily be surmised; he took one of your hands, from time to time you felt the warmth of the tears falling from his eyes and running the length of your arm. Still your mother didn’t return; it’s not your fault’ it’s your mothers fault…..My goodness, how you’re crying. And why cry? He promised you. He’ll keep all of his promises to you. When one has been fortunate enough to meet a charming child like yourself, become attached to her, to give her pleasure, it’s for life…..Your mother, she returned almost immediately after his departure, she found you in the dreamy state you were in a moment ago; one is always like that. You mother spoke to you and you didn’t hear what she said”

But before he elaborates any further, Diderot interrupts himself again by imagining that he is speaking directly to his friend Grimm and being mocking for talking to a painting. “What, my friend, you’re laughing at me; you’re making fun of a serious person who amuses himself by consoling a painted child for having lost her bird, for having lost what you will….”.

Then he interrupts himself yet again and thoughtfully changes his tone before going on to explain to his friend why he was so taken with this portrait of the young girl. The composition, he states, is so sly and cunning that no one viewing it could understand what Greuze was trying to communicate, namely, that this young woman was not lamenting the loss of her bird, but her virginity.

And with that, Diderot tied together all the allegorical threads and imagined a tender young love story, which highlights his unique approach to art criticism. He is prodding art lovers to place themselves within the painting, inside the scene itself in order to capture its true voice. Like the painting of Diderot at the outset, reading all of the suggestive elements, and placing ourselves there in the moment, in the room, hands us the keys to the kingdom, to the holy grail of art appreciation. But before ending his review of Greuze’s touching portrait, Diderot makes one last comment that friends knew so well, by switching from sweet sentimentality to unvarnished eroticism. Diderot was well known to have liked the ladies!

“I don’t like to trouble anyone, yet I would not be too displeased to have been the cause of her pain.”

The effect of this type of casual, yet intimately perceptive review had on audience cannot be overstate. No one in the 18^th century had ever read anything like it. He was inviting his audience to imagine themselves there at Louvre, standing next to him, being moved by the delicacy of Greuze’s composition. Since few people, even the foreign aristocrats he was writing to, would ever have the opportunity to see the actual paintings, Diderot was giving them their only conduit to ‘experience’ them as he had.

Yet Diderot had many other intellectual gears he could shift to and would occasionally use a painting or sculpture as an invitation to digress on his views regarding aesthetics or philosophy or some other landscape in his mind that needed fresh air. One such example was a brilliant digression on what artists are ultimately aiming for in their work..

In a review of a particular landscape painting by Claude-Joseph Vernet, he begins his review by imagining himself in the painting, walking through the landscape while speaking with an unnamed abbot as a companion, who he uses as a literary foil. Remember that Diderot was a master conversationalist, and often used this technique, like the one illustrated above, in order to let his mind roam freely, and his digression during this stroll involved his theory on artists, and their role with nature itself.

With Vernet’s painting, Diderot strolls through the scenery, basking in his seascapes, mountain summits, waterfalls and castles, when his companion proffered the opinion that he felt the best artists are those who reproduce nature perfectly. But Diderot scoffs at the suggestion, insisting that true artists are masters of allusion, who carefully craft a dialogue between the real and the imaginary. They will remove or downplay some elements while enhancing others, all to create their own unique ‘vision’ of nature, to breathe life into the thing, which is basically Nietzsche’s Dionysian passion merging with Apollonian form. Here is Diderot’s insightful reply back to the abbot’s remark.

“If you spent more time with him (Vernet), perhaps he’d have taught you to see in nature what you don’t see now. How many things you’d find there that needed altering! How many of them his art would omit as they spoiled the overall effect and muddled the impression, and how many he’d draw together to double the enchantment! If he (Vernet) had taught you to see nature better, nature, for her part, would have taught you to see Vernet better.”

In the last review I will include here, Diderot shows off the sheer depth and multiplicity of his mind, as well his fearlessness to prick the ire of authorities. In this exceptional piece, which no one else in all of Europe could have penned, he was commenting on a stunning ten-foot-by-seventeen-foot painting (1765) by Jean-Honore’ Fragonard titled, “The High Priest Croesus Sacrificing Himself to Save Callirrhoe.” The painting is a retelling of a Greek passion play concerning the ancient Greek city of Calydon during a plague, when the people approach an oracle for help. The oracle advises them (as is standard fare for these things) that they must sacrifice a beautiful young girl named “Callirrhoe” or to find someone else to die for her. At the climax of the story, the victim is brought to the Temple where the head priest, a man named Coresus, who has always loved Callirhoe, has the task of killing her to save the city.

But this is where it gets interesting. Diderot shift gears and begins a dreamlike trance where he is there with Fragonard while paint the scene, he is there in the scene when Coresus refuses to kill the woman he loves and plunges the knife into his own heart instead. Then he stands next to the other characters on canvas and describing each of their shocks at Coresus’ ultimate act of love. Here is Diderot’s description of the scene, again, as if he is there with them.

“At that very instant, Coresus grips the sacrificial knife, he raises his arm; I think he is about to strike the victim, to plunge the knife into the breast of she who had scorned him and whom the heaven had now delivered to him; no, not at all, he strikes himself. A generalized shriek pierces the air…..his knees give way, his head falls back, one of his arms hangs limp, the hand welding the knife still fixes it in his heart.”

Now keep in mind that we’re talking about a review of a painting here, yet our man Diderot has been so moved by Fragonard’s work that he inserted himself (along with his readers) into the story, bringing it to life with all the emotion and passion the scene elicits, which perfectly captures Riegl’s conception of “the beholder’s share.”

But even that isn’t the most stunning moment of the review, because he also pulls philosophy into the drama by retelling the allegory of Plato’s Cave, and he does so for a noteworthy purpose. In his description of the allegory, Diderot’s version is initially similar to Plato’s. It begins in a dark cave in which there are a multitude of men, women and children, all of whom are prisoners, chained in place and are forced to watch a series of projected images, echoes and silhouettes on the cavern wall in front of them. Since this is all they have ever seen, they believe the illusions are reality, which was basically Plato’s original point, that most people are prisoners of their own perceptions or deceived by manufactured illusions.

Up to this point, Diderot’s reworking had been similar, but then he pivots sharply and speaks as one of those chained prisoners who escaped the cave and discovered the deception at work, and now aims to expose the whole enterprise.

“Our hands and feet were chained and our heads so well secured by wooden restraints that it was impossible for us to turn them. Our backs were turned to the entrance of this place and could see nothing but its inner reaches, across which a huge canvas had been hung…….behind us were Kings, ministers, priests, doctors, apostles, prophets, theologians, cheats, charlatans, masters of illusions, and the whole band of dealers in hopes and fears, all presenting their illusions on the wall before us.”

It’s hard to imagine now, 250 plus years later, how radical this would have been, for he was writing to the very people who were themselves complicit in running a massive illusion factory, whose function was to control the minds of the people, particularly the minds of the French. This frames quite pointedly the iconoclasm Diderot brought to the 18^th century party. During this “Age of Reason”, it was Diderot who saw past Voltaire’s love of reason and Rousseau’s dependence on passion, and brought them together in a way that felt natural. He realized that in the arts, as well as in life, that Apollonian ‘order and control’ is lifeless and requires Dionysian passion and exuberance to give this whole wonderful mess its true grandeur.